Secularization or a return to religion? The religiosity of immigrants and their descendants

International audienceLike most European societies, France has become a predominantly secular country. Moreover, with the affirmation of the political creed of laïcité in the last decade, the expression of religion in public life, Islam especially, is under a strict scrutiny. The trends towards more secularism vary greatly, however, across religious denominations: not only are people educated in a Christian family more likely than the others to report not having a religion, but they also report a lower level of religiosity. Conversely, religious reproduction is more prevalent in Muslim’s families, and levels of religiosity are much higher among self-reported Muslims. This chapter analyses original data from the TeO survey, one of the few French surveys to provide detailed information on religious affiliation and its transmission among families. We compare the situation of Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and non-affiliated people, and discuss trends in religiosity over time. We also cover the specificities of social relations and intermarriage among religious groups, and develop an analysis of the link between religion and experiences of discrimination and exclusion

Secularism as a barrier to integration. The French Dilemma

This article focuses on the secularism debate currently taking place in France by examining how this issue impacts the integration of immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants. Secularism is one of the key values of French Republicanism, but one which has been challenged by the establishment of a settled population of Muslim immigrants in France. The issue has been particularly highlighted by the affaire des foulards (headscarf affair), an ongoing debate over the rights of Muslim girls to wear a headscarf to secular French schools. Discussions of the principle of secularism and of its application have been even more intense in recent months with the publication in December 2003 of a report by the Stasi Commission, a commission set up by President Chirac to investigate the application of the principle of secularism, and by the passage of legislation intended to outlaw the wearing of any "overt" religious insignia in French schools. This article examines these recent developments in the context of the long-running debate over Muslim women's right to wear a headscarf in French schools. It argues that the current focus on secularism provides evidence of the return of assimilation as a primary objective of public policy (Brubaker, 2001) and the decreasing strength of the movement in favour of the droit à la différence (right to difference). Finally, the paper argues that this has provided important obstacles to the integration of certain groups of immigrants, particularly Muslim immigrants

As French as Anyone Else: Islam and the North African Second Generation in France

Amid growing Islamophobia throughout Europe, Muslims in France have been described as “ethnoracial outsiders” (Bleich 2006, 3–7) and framed as a cultural challenge to the identity of the French republic. Based on ethnographic research of 45 middle class adult children of North African, or Maghrébin, immigrants, I focus on the actual religious practices of this segment of the French Muslim population, the symbolic boundaries around those practices, and the relationship between how middle class, North African second-generation immigrants understand their marginalization within mainstream society and how they frame their religiosity to respond to this marginalization. How respondents frame their practices reveals their allegiance with the tenets of French Republicanism and laïcité as well as shows how Muslim religious practices are being accommodated to the French context. This religiosity is not a barrier to asserting a French identity. Individuals frame their religious practices in ways that suggest they see themselves as just as French as anyone else

Life as Concept and as Science in Early Modern Thought

What are early modern life sciences, the sciences of? What is the relation of philosophical considerations on living versus dead matter, or the possibility of animate matter, to such sciences? In this entry I examine such questions